


Only If For A Night

by ghostforests



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: But optimistic sad, Inspired by and titled with a Florence and the Machine song I highly recommend, M/M, Moving On, attack on titan - Freeform, sad I guess, song from adventure time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 23:19:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12617816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostforests/pseuds/ghostforests
Summary: Jean has a dream.





	Only If For A Night

Jean knew he was dreaming. 

He was sitting on freshly cut green grass, and when he had fallen asleep it had been dead winter. On top of that, he was back behind their old training barracks, where an sprawling field went on until it faded into towns and forests. He also felt about a year younger than he had when he fell asleep, and with a happy sigh he spread his body across the soft grass and looked up at the sky. Jean didn't want to think about what would be waiting for him when he woke up (a cold empty bed, watery food, chores) and instead decided to live in this little fantasy of his.

He didn't *hear* Marco appear, he felt it. 

All of a sudden, the back of his neck went cold, and he whipped around. And then his mouth went as dry as cotton. There he was, standing maybe a foot away. His dead best friend, whose body he had picked up himself, had identified, had carried to the mass grave of flame to burn. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind he realized it didn't seem to be any sort of time of day, there was no sun or moon, just clouds that looked like someone had ripped them into ribbons with their hands. The quality of light was akin to a sunset, and the vast expanse above him was collectively every color he had ever seen. Marco looked like he had the day before he died, kind-eyed and tan, dark hair just long enough (falling into his eyes, just about) to want cutting. 

Before Jean could really panic, he realized the splatters on Marco's cheeks weren't blood, just his freckles. A trick of the oscillating light. The expression on his face was thoughtful, but also a little concerned. He was standing, seeming to tower over Jean from his vantage point on the ground. Jean had flashes of Marco's death, what it must've been like, and his vision went fuzzy. He felt a hand on his shoulder, warm through his thin shirt. He remembered those hands, calloused and scared but as gentle as a summer breeze. He remembered how they shook the night before their rankings had been announced, how steady they were on his shoulder while they pulled him back from a particularly nasty fight with Eren, how patient they were with him while cleaning cuts and scolding him for fighting yet again, telling him he needed to save his energy for training. 

Like a child, he pushed himself up onto his knees, breaking out of his shock and throwing his arms around Marco's legs and finally, finally after all of this time, sobbing. He felt those masterpieces of hands card through his hair over and over, playing at the shaved part of it with a determined focus that Jean knew to mean he was trying to memorize something. This was too *Marco* to be a figment of Jean's fantasy, there were too many details he realized, guiltily, that he had forgotten. 

The grass seemed like it was growing over Marco's feet, slowly but surely. Everywhere around him the floor of the world was vibrant green, much different from the dusty green it had been when they were trainees. The buildings behind them looked comforting and welcoming, like the sheds around the property didn't hold mechanisms of death but gardening tools, things to bring about life instead of end it. Jean couldn't help but wonder if this was really his dream, or if he had ended up tangled in Marco's. But dead kids didn't dream, he reminded himself, and tried to choke back the rest of the sobs.

Marco still hadn't spoken a word, and he needed to hear that voice, just accented enough to be musical. It was the kind of music your ear *wants* to listen to, the kind you would follow down an old hallway to find the source of. It wasn't girlish, or deep and commanding like Reiner's. It didn't force you to listen to it. Absently, he though that Marco would've made a great leader. Kind enough to be liked, but intense enough in his own way to be respected.

Marco sighed, and Jean looked up. His eyes were cast skyward, no real expression on his features. Jean released his legs, absently wiping at his face to try and clear the dampness. The stickiness of the saltwater felt completely real, he noticed, and he could actually feel the light breeze on his skin if he concentrated. It was the perfect sort of temperature that you can't really feel, but is at the same time to most comfortable to be in. Like the lightest softest shirt, he thought. 

Marco was still looking up, and Jean, still on his knees, stood up and reached to place a hand on the other boy's face. With a jolt that shocked him cold, he realized this was the part of Marco's face that should be missing. He half expected his hand to fall through Marco then, but it stayed as it was, timid and ghost-like against Marco's warm skin. Almost as if to remove Jean's hand, Marco dropped his head and the hand slid off and landed softly on his shoulder. He looked back up at Jean then, the two of them connected in the strange light and the distant memory by a simple mix of cells touching, stretched across a distance that spanned time now, and sighed again. 

Before Jean could ask why, could reach out and tell Marco that he loved him, that he wanted to stay here forever, Marco spoke.

"You need to concentrate, Jean." Jean was too focused on the way he still said his name perfectly after all this time to really realize what he had said until a moment later. 

"I- what?" He knew he sounded brash, confused, upset. Marco looked somewhat sympathetic, but mostly determined. Jean missed his expressions more than he had ever really noticed before.

"You need to concentrate. You have to let me go, Jean. You'll die if you keep thinking about how I did." Jean was distantly surprised, caught in wonderment at the idea that a memory, the conjured up image of his best friend, could have such a clear and concise message. It clearly mattered to him that he got the message across, but what he was asking was so easily said, and so rarely done. "Marco- you...you know I can't just *forget* about you. I could- I could never-"

"Then don't forget about me. But you can't keep dwelling on me, or you'll kill yourself. You know that. I'm still with you, every step of the way." He stepped closer in the vibrant grass that was definitely longer now, Jean's hand now sliding down his arm and entwining itself with Marco's. "I just can't be with you as if I were really by your side, anymore."

And Jean knew he was right. But he couldn't help it, even if this was a dream, just a conversation he'd already imaged himself having a thousand times over. He couldn't miss this chance. 

"I realized, af-" Jean sucked in a breath. This hurt him, hurt him badly. "...after you died. You were best friend, man. But I-...I *loved* you," Now that the words were spilling out he couldn't stop them, his surface tension had been broken and his glass had been full far too long. 

"I was so focused on my stupid crush on Mikasa, because she was pretty, but I didn't even *know* her. I started to realize when I thought about my ideal life, it didn't really include her. It included you. But I kept pushing it down, because I was scared, and I started to force it with her and I was such a jackass and then I couldn't tell you. And I don't regret anything more." 

Marco looked at him softly, eyes golden where the sky picked out pieces of color, and smiled. "I know. I loved you too, Jean." And that's all it took. Jean fell to his knees again, dragging Marco down with him this time. He buried his face in the side of Marco's neck, trying desperately not to start crying again. He felt gentle patterns being rubbed into his back, and he sighed shakily. He couldn't quite be sure enough of himself to speak yet, but somehow he knew he would never get this chance again.

"How?" He knew Marco had looked back up at the sky again because Jean could feel the slim muscles in his shoulder and neck move.

"I'm not sure. Sheer willpower, maybe? God's gift? It doesn't really make much sense afterwards, either, if I'm being honest." Jean sat up then, but only to gently push Marco to the grass so he was lying down. Snorting at Marco's raised eyebrow, he turned around and rested his shoulder blades on the grass that was starting to feel much more like a blanket. He was warm against the other boy's side, and they looked up at the sky together. Marco was humming. Jean could feel the slight rumbling sensation coming from his ribs, and his ears were picking up the faintest noise drifting through their otherwise silent landscape. He fought back tears again as he remembered this, exactly what Marco used to do when they couldn't sleep in the barracks. He wasn't sure he quite recognized the tune, but it was so nice to listen to.

Then the tune changed, and he couldn't help but whisper the words along. This was one he'd never forget. 

"Let's go in the garden," The sky was a pretty lilac now, and he was pretty sure Marco was crying. He didn't feel the need to look over and check. He knew the feeling all too well. 

"You'll, find something waiting," Knowing Marco would be with him sounded a lot better coming from Marco himself. He'd always hated the bullshit people told him about 'always with you in your heart', but maybe they had been right. 

"Right there where you left it, lying on the ground," He could still fight for Marco, but it was easier to know that when he died, he might have something like this. He wouldn't be alone in life and death, he didn't need to try and get it over with sooner.

"When you finally find it, you'll see how it's faded," He still had Marco. And now Marco knew he'd always had Jean. Even if he really did know, Jean had finally been able to tell him.

"The underside is lighter, when you turn it around." 

When he fell asleep in their little dream world, he wasn't sure, but he woke up in his reality with the cold air pressing down on him from every direction. The last few bars of the song were still stuck in his head, and he sung them softly to himself in the early morning darkness. He couldn't help but think of it as his little goodbye to Marco, the one he had never been able to give. Until we see each other again, he thought. Until my clock ticks down enough so that it matches yours. 

"Everything stays, right where you left it, everything stays, but it still changes. Daily and nightly, every so lightly, in little ways, but everything stays." 

And if he cried again before he drifted back into a dreamless sleep, it was out of relief. Jean Kirchstein would go on to live years more, save even more lives, and all with his invisible angel by his side. He'd see him again sometime soon, anyway.


End file.
